S.F. Labor Leader Rudy Tham, 75

Stephen Schwartz

Published
4:00 am PDT, Wednesday, October 7, 1998

1998-10-07 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- A funeral vigil and Mass will be celebrated for Rudy Michael Tham of San Francisco, a flamboyant and controversial union leader in Northern California for many years.

Mr. Tham died Monday at his home near Lake Merced. He was 75.

Mr. Tham, a native Californian, was an accomplished boxer who won an amateur welterweight title in 1941 and was known as "the Butchertown sausage maker."

He sailed in the merchant marine during World War II. He came back to the Bay Area in 1946 and joined the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as an organizer of wholesale grocery sales workers.

He was a founding officer of Teamsters Freight Checkers, Clerical Employees and Helpers Local 856 in San Francisco in 1949 and retired as the local's secretary- treasurer in 1982.

Under Mr. Tham, the local became the first San Francisco union since the Depression of the 1930s to sign contracts in Chinatown. It expanded to include thousands of members.

He represented, and led campaigns to organize, air freight workers, car rental agents, dental workers, brewery workers, and hotel clerks, as well as San Francisco Zoo keepers, school administrators, state prison guards and other public employees.

Using the local as a base to build political power, Mr. Tham was appointed to the San Francisco Fire Commission by Mayor John Shelley in 1966 and was reappointed by Mayor Joseph Alioto four years later, and again in 1974.

But Mr. Tham was dogged through much of his career by accusations of misconduct.

In 1972, while serving as Fire Commission president, he was indicted by the federal Organized Crime Strike Force for alleged extortion. He was charged with calling a 1968 strike at San Francisco International Airport. The strike was purportedly intended to force Airborne Freight Corp. to sign a labor consultancy contract worth $190,000 with two of Mr. Tham's New York associates.

The charge was dismissed, but Mr. Tham's public problems did not go away.

In 1977, he was investigated again by the Organized Crime Strike Force for allegedly demanding kickbacks from hotels where his members worked.

That investigation led to an indictment in 1979 for felony embezzlement of union funds. His trial featured testimony by Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno, a well-known witness in organized crime cases.

Mr. Tham was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail and a $50,000 fine.

As a convicted felon, he was barred from serving as a union officer for five years, but remained an official while the case was appealed.